


What Would Steve Do?

by afteriwake



Series: Stuff Of Improbable Legends [75]
Category: Agent Carter (TV), Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: BAMF Peggy, BAMF Peggy Carter, Bar Room Brawl, Captain America Comic Spoilers, Drunk Phil, Drunk Phil Coulson, Gen, Honor, Inspired by Roleplay/Roleplay Adaptation, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Roleplay Logs, Sad Peggy, Sad Phil, Sad Phil Coulson, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-07-10 13:49:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6987556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Coulson tries to defend Earth-616 Steve's honor and it leads to a bar fight that Peggy gets dragged into, she and Coulson talk about what their Steve would want them to do to continue his legacy if he was in New Orleans with them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Would Steve Do?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sideofrawr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sideofrawr/gifts).



> So I recently had **sideofrawr** go through [a list of sentence starters](http://penaltywaltz.tumblr.com/post/142534142233/random-sentence-starters) for prompts for both of her commissioned series and she zeroed in on " _'Did you really just insult Captain America in front of me?'_ " as the perfect one for a Coulson fic, which I agree with. And we _just_ got Peggy Carter in game as well, so I thought that would be an appropriate fic to introduce her with as well, with the hoopla over the comic and the Civil War movie and everything. So there are spoilers for the abomination that is Captain America: Steve Rogers (2016) #1 here if you aren't aware, and there is a quote from "Captain America: Civil War" used in the fic.
> 
> There is also, fair warning, a partial use of the N-word by a character to insult Sam Wilson, which is basically the last straw for Coulson and the start of the fight. I wanted to warn for that in the notes.

“Did you really just insult Captain America in front of me?” He knew his voice was slightly slurred from the amount of alcohol he’d consumed, and his reflexes were most likely to be a bit slower than normal, but truthfully he didn’t care. Between the news that had flooded the internet over the last week of what was being done to the comic book version of his hero and the fact that there was the movie out and the television show and he couldn’t avoid spoilers for either, he had just wanted to spend one night not caring. And he’d hoped by going to a bar that had a bit of a tougher crowd, and with his wish not to be recognized as either Phil Coulson or Clark Gregg in this world he could slip by unnoticed, but for _some_ reason the people around him just had to turn the conversation to comics and he and his drinking partner for the evening had had to listen to his increasingly hate-filled diatribe against Marvel.

But this...this was the last straw.

The man snorted before lifting up his pint glass to take a drink. “Captain America is nothing better than a two-bit walking propaganda sign. I mean, hell, they replaced him with a nig--”

Coulson started the punch before the man even finished the racist slur. He’d never had the pleasure of meeting Sam Wilson in person but any friend of Cap’s would be a man he knew he admired, damn it, and he’d do whatever it took to protect their honor. Any man who bore that shield and was willing to give his or her life for it deserved it: Steve, Sam, Bucky...didn’t manner. The man took the punch well and then in a moment a fist landed across his own face, and unfortunately _this_ fist had more force behind it.

Within just a few minutes the bar was in a full-scale brawl. He looked for his drinking partner to pull her out of it but he shouldn’t have been surprised to find Peggy Carter in the thick of it and holding her own quite well. It wasn’t until he saw a man coming up behind her with a chair to bash her over the head that he realized they needed to get the hell out of there and _fast_. “Ma’am!” he called out, gesturing behind her.

Peggy turned, and then socked the man in the solar plexus and he doubled over, dropping the chair. She came over to Coulson and then gingerly put an arm around his waist. “Let’s try and find a back exit, shall we?” she said as the sound of sirens began to be heard. “I believe leaving by the front will be a bad idea momentarily.”

He nodded. “I think you’re right,” he said, and the two of them made their way through the fight, threading in and out of various skirmishes to the restrooms in the back, and then out to the exit that led out to the alley. They made their way out but saw there were police cars at the end blocking it. “We’re stuck.”

“A fine mess we seem to have gotten ourselves into,” Peggy said, looking around. She spotted another door and then nodded towards it. “That seems to be a Chinese restaurant. Perhaps they’ll let us slip through to the front and then leave through the front door?”

“Or if I don’t look like I got put through the ringer we can get some orange chicken and dim sum and maybe some more beer,” Coulson said.

“I think you have enough alcohol coursing through you at the moment, Phil,” she said gently, leading him down the alley to the restaurant. “I think it’s a complete cock-up, what’s happening to Steve’s legacy, even if it isn’t _our_ Steve. It’s disrespectful on so many levels and an absolute slap in the face to the people who created him. But we can’t let it get the better of us. We can’t let it drag us down.” 

“I know,” he said with a sigh.

“I’ve been on the internet a bit, even though I’m trying to avoid most things because of the movie,” she said, leaning into him slightly. “But I know there’s a scene with my niece, where she recounts something I said that I think we should both remember: even if everyone is telling you that something wrong is right, even if the whole world is telling you to move, it is your duty to plant yourself like a tree, look them in the eye, and say ‘No, you move.’ We know Steve would never be HYDRA, no matter what that prat insists. And we can’t let this sadness and bitterness we feel change us. We must continue to live for and strive for the ideals he would want us to, if he was here with us.”

“But with everything going on, not just the retcon of Steve’s, but what’s happening in our home universe with the movie and my show, it just seems so...pointless,” he said.

“You must always have hope,” she said. “Even at the most dire of times, there should _always_ be hope. Otherwise, what’s the point of going on in life? Even with the world climate being what it is today, I still have hope.”

Coulson looked over at her and gave her a small smile. “You always were one of the best in S.H.I.E.L.D., ma’am,” he said. “And you always were one of the best people in the business, from what I understand. Or at least you were from what I saw.”

“I rather hope so,” she said. “I like to hope I didn’t change too fundamentally in the years between when S.H.I.E.L.D. was started and...well, now.”

“I don’t think you ever could, ma’am.”

She shook her head, a small grin on her face. “It’s rather unnerving for you to call me ma’am, you know. Please, as I’ve said before, call me Peggy. I mean, we live on the same plane, for goodness sake.”

“I’m sorry. I’m just a bit of a fan, I guess,” he said, slightly embarrassed. “But I’ll try...Peggy.”

“Good,” she said with a decisive nod. “Now then. Let’s get to the restaurant and if they’ll let us settle at a table, perhaps get a meal while the commotion settles down, share a pot of tea, and then catch a taxicab back to The Bus and sleep this off. And then tomorrow we’ll look towards the future and trying to go back to living lives that would make Steve proud, alright?”

Coulson nodded as well. “All right,” he said, giving her a small grin in return. As they made their way towards the back entrance of the restaurant he marveled at how lucky he was to have Peggy here now, because if there was anyone who wasn’t on his team who would understand what a betrayal this felt like, it was her, so to have her there felt almost right somehow. It would take some time to get over the betrayal, but e knew he would.

Eventually.


End file.
